"We don't care how many women he has abused, cheated on, or objectified. We don't care how many black people he insults. We don't care how many refugees he turns away or non-American Christians he sends back to persecution, as long he helps US." US = white, American, men. https://t.co/h7HS0Drp1A

Which biblical principle was it where Christ referred to "the mulligan?"

President Trump is accused of paying $130,000 in hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels to hide an affair a month before the election. In what is probably just a coincidence, the Trump campaign transferred $130K to the Trump businesses a month after the election. pic.twitter.com/KKknIC9ClC

I'm reminded of Bob Dylan's Idiot Wind, in which he contends against a stupidity so massive it sweeps like the jet stream across the American continent, "from the Grand Coulee Dam / To the Capitol." . . .

God and Trump is a terrible book, but it is an important book, in its way, for those of us struggling to understand how Christians can support a moral cretin like President Trump.

Still, I think Strang left some stuff out. Because unlike the alt-right, which is pretty forthright about its ideals, most high-profile Trump supporters, Christian or otherwise, are not intellectually honest. If they were, we'd see a book explaining what's really behind all this cynical piety: that they want a white man in the White House, that they want conservative Christian values to be codified into law, that they want to hang onto their cash, and that everybody else can go to hell. Perhaps literally.

When Bill Clinton, who had a long history with the church and whose wife taught Sunday school, had an affair, carnival barker @Franklin_Graham raged about Bathsheba.

When Trump - who I've known for decades and is as much a Christian as my dog - does the same, Frankie says "meh." pic.twitter.com/rJFFnTCVjv

Robyn Pennacchia on Tony Perkins' claim that white evangelicals love the moral monstrosity in the White House because they're of being kicked around by Obama and liberals:

How evangelical Christians were supposedly "kicked around" by Obama, I honestly have no idea. Being pro-choice, being pro-LGBTQ rights, not allowing discrimination, is not 'kicking around' evangelicals, it is not "bullying" them. It is merely preventing them from being able to bully others. Evangelicals claiming that Obama "bullied" them is like the school bully claiming he's being "bullied" because the school won't let him give anyone a swirly, even though he really likes giving nerds swirlies, or the prom queen suing the school because they forced her to be exposed to people who wear clothes she doesn't like.

But I digress.

The fact is, adultery is just not a big thing for evangelicals, at least so far as it concerns their more powerful leaders. As long as it's not gay adultery like Ted Haggard did, as long as it doesn't include child molesting like Josh Duggar did, you are basically all right and can definitely continue your career of swindling old people out of their Social Security through promises of eternal salvation.

Satan's talking Q-Tip, Mike Pence,
wants us all to believe that Mommy let him off his leash to trudge through the pussy-grabbin muck of trump's heart to call the Stormy Daniels story "baseless."

"Drive over to the poor part of town, and see what a sh*thole it is. Do you want the people who turned their neighborhood a sh*thole to bring the sh*thole to your street? No, you don’t. Be honest, you don’t." Dreher: https://t.co/QPqQBQW1Tj

(She later corrected the "blesses" in her tweet, noting she intended to write "blessed.")

Former Republican National Committee Chair Michael Steele to evangelical gurus defending the moral monstrosity in the White House:

"I have a very simple admonition at this point," Steele said on "Hardball" on MSNBC. "Just shut the hell up and don't ever preach to me about anything ever again. I don't want to hear it."

Steele added:

"After telling me how to live my life, who to love, what to believe, what not to believe, what to do and what not to do and now you sit back and the prostitutes don't matter? The grabbing the you-know-what doesn't matter? The outright behavior and lies don't matter? Just shut up."

In case you missed it, Rod Dreher is a racist and he's proud of it.

In my experience, the sentiment he expresses here is quite common among white evangelicals. https://t.co/DINFgbBIeW

Fred Clark on Glenn Simpson's statement, in testimony before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, that there has been "a lot" of inflitration of religious groups in the U.S. by Putin's folks:

The tantalizing bit from Simpson's testimony here that hasn't prompted nearly as much follow-up reporting is his remark that "the Russian operation was designed to infiltrate conservative organizations" and that "religious" groups were specifically targeted for this infiltration.

Simpson also said:

"We have done some research on some religious groups having relationships with the Russians, having, developing, and pursuing relationships with various religious groups. … There has been a lot of that."

I would very much like to see some industrious journalists follow up on that. I would like to see them follow the money.

Thinking through the roster of major players on the religious right, it's not hard to come up with a list of those who would be susceptible to such infiltration — or to come up with a list of those who would be eagerly receptive. . . .

We need to know the names of those "various religious groups" that were "targeted" and — perhaps — "infiltrated" by Russians representing "banker-slash-Duma member-slash-Mafia" interests. And we need to know how this influenced them.

"We need, in every community, a group of angelic troublemakers." Bayard Rustin, Quaker gay activist

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About Me

I'm a theologian who writes about the interplay of belief and culture. My husband Steve (also a theologian) and I are now in our 47th year together. Though the church has discarded us (and here, here, here, and here) because we insist on being truthful about our shared life, we continue to celebrate the amazing grace we find in our journey together and love for each other.
We live in hope; we remain on pilgrimage....
A note about my educational background: I have a Ph.D. and M.A. in theology from Univ. of St. Michael's College, Toronto School of Theology; an M.A. in English from Tulane Univ.; and a B.A. in English from Loyola, New Orleans.